Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Time to Redefine the "Habitable Zone"?

posted by chromas on Tuesday July 31 2018, @04:53PM   Printer-friendly

takyon writes:

With All These New Planets Found in the Habitable Zone, Maybe it's Time to Fine Tune the Habitable Zone

In the past few decades, thousands of extra-solar planets have been discovered within our galaxy. As of July 28th, 2018, a total of 3,374 extra-solar planets have been confirmed in 2,814 planetary systems. While the majority of these planets have been gas giants, an increasing number have been terrestrial (i.e. rocky) in nature and were found to be orbiting within their stars' respective habitable zones (HZ).

However, as the case of the Solar System shows, HZs do not necessary mean a planet can support life. Even though Mars and Venus are at the inner and the outer edge of the Sun's HZ (respectively), neither is capable of supporting life on its surface. And with more potentially-habitable planets being discovered all the time, a new study suggests that it might be time to refine our definition of habitable zones.

Welcome to the Inhospitable Zone.

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Time to Redefine the "Habitable Zone"? | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 43 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 5, Funny) by bob_super on Tuesday July 31 2018, @05:46PM (2 children)

    by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday July 31 2018, @05:46PM (#715309)

    > Time to Redefine the "Habitable Zone"?

    Since the Administration is busy redefining "allies", "trade" and even "safely breathable air", I thought that title meant the Department of Housing and Urban development was about to thoroughly redefine "habitable zone" to both deny the existence of homelessness and push those pesky 99%ers farther away from the rich areas.

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +3  
       Funny=2, Touché=1, Total=3
    Extra 'Funny' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   5  

  • (Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday July 31 2018, @05:53PM

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Tuesday July 31 2018, @05:53PM (#715312) Journal

    That's it. You've been banned from Elysium.

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 2, Troll) by VLM on Tuesday July 31 2018, @07:21PM

    by VLM (445) on Tuesday July 31 2018, @07:21PM (#715345)

    Well, remember, it works both ways, and now that we have upgraded from 2 genders to 1488 genders, there's plenty of other weird redefinition going on in the NewSpeak world. For example, as an Apache-Attack-Helicopter-Kin my habitable zone is limited such that I can only reproduce in a world wide empire having a substantial military industrial complex. For my partner and I to enjoy inserting titanium forged turbine blades up each other's exhaust ports in the privacy of our own bedroom, as we do, don't judge, check your privilege ( this post's privilege level has been checked to be chmod 444 ) , takes a rather substantial heavy industry presence.

    Somewhat more seriously, it would be interesting to study or analyze exactly what cause and effect relationship exists, if any.

    I thought that title meant the Department of Housing and Urban development was about to thoroughly redefine "habitable zone" to both deny the existence of ...

    ... any locale with more than 5% urban hipsters? That's what I was thinking.